All this week I’ve been very
closely involved with the case of an asylum seeker family.
Fatou Felicite Gaye and her four-year-old son Arouna were
detained in an early morning raid – the UK Border Agency
claims it wasn’t a dawn raid because it took place at 06:45
and dawn raids take place before 06:30, but I’m not sure
that the subtle distinction mattered all that much to a
frightened young child who was woken by seven burly
enforcement officers, dragged from his bed and taken to
Dungavel.

Arouna, the young boy, was born
in Scotland and has lived here all his life. He suffers
post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his earlier
encounters with UKBA and there can be little doubt that his
latest encounter will not have helped that condition. Jim
Murphy, Secretary of State for Scotland, in a letter to the
Herald, said that he didn’t come into politics to detain
children and that sometimes families needed ‘help to go
home’ when they had refused to leave.

The lack of common human decency
from the Labour Government in London is embarrassing to us all
and Jim Murphy’s attempts to excuse himself from
responsibility for the detention of a child in Dungavel
represent just the latest pitiful example.

In October 2008 Labour said
detention of children at Dungavel would stop, but six months
later a child was detained and Labour's man in Scotland said that he wants to "reserve
the right to take enforceable action to help a family return
home". A four year old child, born in Scotland, suffering
from a stress disorder thanks to his last encounter with the
UK's Border Agency, is taken from his bed in the early hours
of the morning and deposited in a prison and Jim Murphy says
he is ‘helping’ the family return home. ‘Helping’ is not
the right word here, Mr Murphy.

In October 2008 the UK Government
said it would finally sign up to all of the UN Convention on
the Rights of the Child. The detention of children at
Dungavel is a breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of
the Child.

Mr
Murphy’s government is detaining a four year old Scots-born
child for deportation to the Ivory Coast – detained with no
consideration for the health, education or even human rights
of the child. The Foreign Office travel advice for the
Cote d'Ivoire warns of terrorism, armed
militia, sporadic violence, and the potential for the
“sudden deterioration of law and order”, but this is where
Jim Murphy wants to send this mother and child. He
claims he did not come into politics to detain children.
His actions say otherwise.

Arouna and his mother have been
moved out of Scotland, removed from Dungavel to Yarls Wood
detention centre. I believe that this is an attempt to try
to bypass the strong public feeling in Scotland that views
such treatment of children as abhorrent, and to avoid the
scrutiny of the Scottish courts examining the case for human
rights violations. I’ve been in touch with the solicitor
acting for the family and I know that he intends to continue
to pursue this as long as possible. I’ll give him every
support, the behaviour of UKBA in this case, as in so many
other cases, has been disgusting and I feel ashamed that
they were able to do this in my country, in my name, and in
direct opposition to the wishes of the Scottish people.

The regional director of UKBA
followed up Jim Murphy’s letter with one of his own seeking
to justify the actions of his organisation by claiming that
they seek to persuade asylum seeker families to leave the
country if they have failed to win their case. He said
“Where, over a protracted period of time, the parents make
it clear that they have no intention of obeying our courts
and our laws, the UK Border Agency has a duty to enforce
those decisions.”

This mother and son aren’t
failed asylum seekers and they weren’t when they were
detained, they were pursuing a legitimate case for asylum.
Fatou’s case was developing in what the Home Office may have
regarded as a dangerous manner, given that a full medical
assessment of her son's condition was due to be made on June
3.

At issue was whether Arnou, the
young boy, had been traumatised by his experience of being
detained by UKBA. Fatou's reporting letter was green
flagged, signifying that a person's case is not yet "appeal
rights exhausted", her asylum case was not finished, it was
still going through the system. Far from being a failed
asylum seeker who was refusing to leave, Fatou was and is an
asylum seeker whose case is still ongoing. The real reason
for her early morning detention must be something other than
a necessity to force her to leave the country. She received
a refusal letter only when she reached Dungavel – and there
is still a court case to go.

Four medical professionals told
the Home Office that Arnou was suffering post-traumatic
stress disorder and a full assessment was coming, but a Home
Office official described those medical opinions as
"speculative" in a letter given to Ms Gaye.

Fatou fled her homeland in fear of her life. In Cote
D'Ivoire she was married to a successful businessman and was
pregnant when her husband’s business was attacked and burned
during the civil war there – she does not know whether he is
alive or not. She was gang-raped and imprisoned, escaped
with the help of a friend, and came here. Since she got
here and asked for asylum she has done what she can to be
useful. The rules mean that asylum seekers are not allowed
to work but she has volunteered to help out in projects like
the St
Rollox Asylum Seekers Support Project.

From a relatively wealthy
existence in Cote D'Ivoire, Ms Gaye could afford to get
here. She might have considered herself to be in a better
condition than most asylum seekers – the ones who can’t
afford to reach Europe and have to walk across the border
into a neighbouring country. It is to our shame that she
and her son have been treated so abysmally in the four years
that she has been here – we should not let that despicable
behaviour continue in our name, we should be saying that it
should end, we should be demanding that it ends. I’ll
continue to do so and I hope you’ll join me in that.

That case will continue and I’m
confident that the solicitor will do what he can – I hope
it’s enough. I raised it today at First Minister’s
Questions, and SNP leader and First Minister Alex Salmond
expressed his disappointment with the UK Government’s
actions and condemned the “unacceptable” actions of the UK
Government saying; "It is not acceptable to
detain children, in an establishment like Dungavel, in
Scotland."

With all of that going on, much
of the rest of the week seems trivial by comparison, we’ve
seen the continued drip of the expenses scandal form London
and the resignation of Michael Martin as Speaker, we’ve been
treated to the worst of politics as the tribes in London
turned in on themselves, tearing each other apart over the
greed of some of them, the grasping avarice that has finally
done them in, and they have, by and large, ignored the real
issues of the day, the important politics which require
attention. Self interested and self important, they have
forgotten why they were sent to Parliament and appear to be
ignoring those who sent them there.

Out in the community, meanwhile,
I was honoured to present the prizes at the Davie Cooper
Sevens on Sunday – the girls’ competition was won by
Townhill and the boys’ competition by Newfield – there’s a
star or two in the making there – keep an eye out for them.

On Tuesday I was at a benefit
night for the NUJ (I know, journalists again) which was
great fun and I was told by one of the speakers that I
should consider a career in stand-up comedy. She was
referring to the jokes in my speech rather than my politics
before you get any ideas!

Into Parliament this week,
education committee on the Wednesday followed by Stage 3 of
the Additional Support for Learning Bill – Labour members,
including those who sit on the committee, still don’t seem
to have grasped what the legislation was about, which is a
great pity. Today’s business in chamber was Labour’s
business, their flawed motion criticising the SNP for
supporting students in better fashion than Labour ever did
and trying to insist that we force students to take loans of
£7,000 a year. Some tuition fee that would be. The debate
should be worth watching on Holyrood TV at
http://www.holyrood.tv/library.asp?iPid=3&section=31&title=General+Debates
– I’m on at 29 minutes and 38 seconds.

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